While we had many beautiful entries, I'd like to address some issues that came up with the contest.

First, I had to disqualify 23 entries because the entrants did not vote.

The rule that participants must vote has been a contest rule for at least four years.

There is a warning that people should not participate if they do not agree to this rule during the submission period.

There is a reminder of the rule in the news journal, on all the voting forms, and in all the contest journals.

I made the voting period long (3 weeks) so people would have time to vote.

And I posted at least four reminders to vote.

The rule is in place because we used to get dozens of entries and only a handful of votes - people were entering contests and then forgetting about them. So I am disappointed that people still managed to forget to vote. It's even more disappointing because two of the disqualified entries would have placed, and a third entry got a DD!

Next: I posed a question in the photo contest voting form about imposing an age limit on photos. For example, the contest entry must be taken after 2008. I originally suggested it because I saw that many entries were taken several years ago, yet the artists in question had better newer works in their galleries. However, you all have convinced me otherwise! 18 people were for the idea - but 23 people were against it! You said things like:

"If it's not required that the photo be taken specifically for the contest I don't see the point in putting an 'age limit' on the images"

"i dont know but when i read the STRICT guidelines for submission i lose my half morale"

"Personally I would not agree with an age limit on a photo, some people only shoot in the wild. If you were going to the zoo to get your photos where your subject is available on a daily basis, or any form of captivity, sure. But if you have only seen a species twice and the last time was 4 years ago, and it's a top quality shot, why should it not be eligible as an entry."

"I think it doesn't matter. Personally we're judging on the piece itself, not the date it was submitted on."

However, some people also suggested that an age limit would be better on contests with a less abstract theme than "Emotions," or that the rule should only be used for some contests. We will make sure to poll for your opinions if we want to institute this rule!

Some other points brought up during voting:

"Some of the entries I didn't think showed any emotion. Or the emotion assigned to them were inaccurate. I think 50% were relevant to the actual competition."Our contests are democratically run - if you think an entry does not fit the theme, then do not vote for it. That's why we encouraged you to think about whether the art evoked the emotion listed under it. We decided to run contests this way because we moderators felt guilty and frustrated about pre-judging contest entries; it didn't seem fair for us to decide whether an entry fit a theme. If the artist thought it did, what gives us mods the privilege to disagree? So we leave it up to popular vote. Plus, it saves us more time if we don't have to evaluate entries

"I'm a little confused as to the requirements of what made an artist 'unknown.'"The requirements were clearly listed in the contest journal at all times and I specifically asked people to note me (meihua) if they were curious about my methodology. If you still want to know, then don't be afraid to just ask!

(re: Unknown Artists) "Perhaps consider if that person has also received any DDs as well?"Only one person in the Unknown Artists contest had a DD, and he got it during the contest, which is not something we could have foreseen. Besides, the requirements would most likely prevent people who already had DDs from participating (less than 2500 faves total OR less than 150 average views per deviation), and he was disqualified for not voting anyway.

Several people said that the Unknown Artists requirements should be made even stricter if we have a similar contest, and others said they definitely want to see an Unknown Artists contest again. So we will see about that!

P.S. If you read all that, thank you for caring about my thoughts! Just to let you know, dA's group journals are buggy and I don't receive notifications on them. I apologize in advance if I don't reply to something!March 1

Don't forget to vote in our Emotions contests! The deadline for voting is March 3rd. Due to my busy schedule, I will not have time to send out individual voting reminders like I usually do, so if you are a participant, please make sure you vote! If you are not sure whether you've voted or not, just cast a vote anyway. If you vote twice, I'll just delete the extra. If you don't vote at all, you will be disqualified.

Oh my gosh I can't believe people didn't vote! I know that I did... Did my votes show up? I even voted in the photo contest which I was a participant in but thought I should vote just to be sure I was counted in the others

I distinctly remember the process because finding entries that claimed to depict an actual emotion was a chore, and then finding ones that actually seemed to portray the claimed emotion was equally as annoying.

Then it is probably best if you do send out a notification specifically to participants who haven't voted in the future. All the general voting reminders didn't mean squat because I was sure I had already voted.

Haha, I agree with you, but only to an extent! I'm sure some people just forgot because they are busy with other things, not because they didn't read the rules. And real life should definitely take precedence over dA life.

Bird-Photo had 31 disqualified entries for our last contest, but none would have placed. We did have one placer int he first contest who was disqualified though! It's a shame, but that rule should never change. If you want a chance to win, you need to participate!

People made some good points about the age limit. Though, what if we held a general contest for any type of bird photo but had an age limit? The theme could be 2011/2012 !

Congratulations to all the winners and participants, it was lots of fun. I personally think we should keep the unknown artists' category, it helps artists who don't normally have any exposure to get a chance at it.